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Women are being frozen out of an “Old Etonian clique” around David Cameron, one of Whitehall’s most senior figures has explosively claimed.

Dame Helen Ghosh said the Prime Minister surrounded himself with a male-dominated “network of friends”, including members of the notorious Bullingdon Club at Oxford University, that was “difficult” for women politicians to penetrate.

Her comments, in a talk to students at Cambridge, will fuel controversy about Mr Cameron’s leadership style — and claims by some critics that he has a problem dealing with women.

Dame Helen said: “If you look at the current government, not necessarily back to the Bullingdon Club days, but Cameron, it is true, it is well known, has a clique, a network of friends — the friends he made at school, friends he made at university.

“That kind of clique network was reinforced in Cameron’s case by the people who worked for him in opposition, the people who supported him in his leadership bid.”

Until her retirement a few weeks ago Dame Helen was one of Britain’s most senior civil servants as permanent secretary at the Home Office following a 33-year career in Whitehall.

Explaining the importance of networks in political life, she said women could be excluded.

“I do think the fact that politics is so driven by networks does impact on women,” she said. “Women don’t network. It is actually quite difficult for a woman to get in as part of an Old Etonian clique. They are far too busy doing other things, like bringing up their children, looking after their constituency.

“That kind of networking is actually a harder thing for women to do.”

Her comments come at a time some Tory MPs complain that Mr Cameron is over-reliant on a circle of old friends and school chums, such as his £140,000-a-year chief of staff Ed Llewellyn, whom he met at Eton, and No 10 “gatekeeper” Kate Fall, whom he met at Oxford.

Dame Helen, 56, said too few women got the top civil service jobs. “There was a magical moment some time in 2006/7 when half of the government departments were run by women,” she said. “But it is still true for the Treasury and the Cabinet Office that the top jobs are still going to men, which I regret.

“Female Cabinet ministers do a bit of networking among themselves but the other networks in governments are often much, much more powerful — whether it’s the Etonian clique or the Brownites or the Blairites.”

Mr Cameron has twice been criticised for appearing to patronise female MPs in the Commons. He told Labour shadow Commons leader Angela Eagle “Calm down dear” during Prime Minister’s Questions. On another occasion he joined in laughter when Tory MP Nadine Dorries said she was frustrated.

Ms Dorries said: “Dame Helen is quite right. Girls do not get to go to Eton and it’s still a boys’ club in Westminster.”

Dame Helen told Clare College politics society that women need “enormous emotional resilience” to put up with criticism of their appearance and “regretted” that her departure to lead the National Trust left young women in the civil service lacking role models.

A No 10 source said: “Dame Helen has got her facts wrong. There are a number of prominent women in the PM’s senior team.”

'This was just for starters'

Commentary: Joe Murphy

QUESTION: What do today’s astonishing comments by Dame Helen Ghosh have in common with last night’s government defeat on Europe?

ANSWER: In both cases, there is concern that the Prime Minister spends too much of his time with a narrow circle of old mates rather than opening up to outsiders.

Dame Helen may have been making a point about the difficulties high-flying women politicians have breaking into a “clique” dating back to boys-only Eton and the all-male Bullingdon club. But the complaint that a set of chums does not listen enough to others is one made by plenty of Tory MPs, male and female.

On the EU budget revolt, a seasoned Tory MP says the lesson for Downing Street is: “These rebels are not going to go away, so the Prime Minister is going to have to give some of them some real face time — not a chat half an hour before a vote.”

Another Tory asks wearily why Downing Street pumped up a non-binding vote into a test of the Prime Minister’s personal authority, which was then lost. “You’ve got people like Ed Llewellyn (the PM’s chief of staff and a friend from Eton) giving him advice, and they are the same people who dreamed up the worst reshuffle anyone can remember.”

Today sees the launch of the Blue Collar Tory group aiming to reconnect with the working class voters who embraced Margaret Thatcher. If the leadership was not seen as “out of touch” it would not need to be invented. And there is worse to come.

Before the election MPs will vote on the EU budget deal and perhaps a new treaty, plus a referendum (which triggered an 81-strong revolt last time). “This was just the hors d’oeuvres,” says an MP. “The main course is in the oven.”